Attachments
Introduction
The total number of Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar is around 869,000 individuals. The Rohingya refugee population is concentrated in extremely congested camps within Ukhyia and Teknaf Upazilas of Cox’s Bazar district, Bangladesh. The refugees living in the camps are dependent on the assistance provided by the humanitarian community and government of Bangladesh.
The reliance on humanitarian assistance has been heightened since the COVID-19 outbreak in Bangladesh due to movement restrictions and containment measures that are being implemented in the camps in an attempt to control the spread of the virus. The restrictive measures have impacted humanitarian programmes - many were reduced to critical services and assistance only with limited number of staff allowed to access the camps each day. This has negatively affected the accessibility and availability of many services. The objective of the IVR sectoral surveys is to highlight the current needs and gaps in services in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and ongoing restrictive containment measures.
Methodology
The IVR sectoral surveys collect information from Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar via short follow up phone interviews dedicated to four sectors: health, WASH, food security and shelter/non-food items (NFI). The survey respondents were identified through IOM’s Communications with Communities (CWC) Interactive Voice Response (IVR program).2 Rohingya refugees who over the past 2 months had called to report issues relating to the forenamed sectors were called back and the relevant sector survey was administered. For example, if a person left a message saying they are facing issues related to water or hygiene facilities, their number was categorized under WASH and they were called to participate in the WASH sector survey.
NPM designed the sectoral tools and implemented the surveys. The numbers categorized under each sector were called to understand and highlight current needs and gaps in services. All respondents were aged 18 years or older and interviews were conducted by a team of Bangladeshi enumerators who have been extensively trained on data collection methods and use of Kobo tool for data entry.
Limitations and Caveats
• Findings are indicative only and are not representative at the camp or overall response level. This is because the phone numbers were not distributed evenly to achieve a representative sample.
• The majority (90%) of the respondents are male. This is because phone ownership is more prevalent amongst males. In addition, men may have felt more comfortable engaging with the IVR system (leaving voice messages) compared to females.
• Many phone numbers were unreachable due to connectivity and network issues in the camps. Therefore, these results do not represent all refugees who called back and reported issues through the IOM IVR system.
• The respondents (representing the household) who agreed to participate in the survey had some level of educational qualifications and are likely economically better off as they owned phones. Hence due to the demographic of the respondents, findings cannot be generalized to the entire population.